What Is The Future Of Commercial Aviation?
By Jim E. Reames (05/28/03)
Before discussing what this researcher considers as being futuristic trends in homeland defense and strong domestic policy it is important to communicate, once more, that socialism cannot finance socialism. In other words, I firmly believe:
The strength of America must remain with the ability for an individual to realize the rewards of his or her hard work, inventions, and market place risks, as free from taxation as possible. This includes the right for an individual to maintain and to realize private property rights. When the risk of individual gain and profit is removed by socialism…..then innovation and hard work usually dies.
As stated in my last opinion paper “Where are Tomorrow’s Jobs?” I wrote, “…we have a lot going against us while at the same time China and other SE Asian and/or European countries want to be our next decade competition for global markets.” Those governments are after American held jobs and American held carrers.
Global and National Challenges to Commercial Aviation:
Few industries have changed more as the result of the September 11, 2001 attack on freedom than has aviation. At our terminals security is up. And on the market the sale of commercial airline tickets is down. Commercial aviation just isn’t fun and exciting like it was in prior decades. In fact, today’s commercial aviation can become so disgusting that a passenger might find him or herself sitting near the back side of a “seeing-eye horse” brought aboard by a different passenger, and be forced to endure the sight, messiness, and foul odors of the animal relieving itself. (This actually happened aboard a commercial plane a few weeks ago.)
Worse, still, large passenger jets are slow getting off the ground, making them easy-prey for black market heat-seeking missiles. And passengers awaiting TSA inspection at crowded termals are easy targets for suicide bombers. On top of all this ground traffic control and windows of airport approach are congested to the point of crisis.
So except for trans-continental or over seas flights I personally view present day commercial jets (the 727, the 737, and jumbo jets) as being dinosaurs of the aviation industry. I predict their sudden demise.
The future, the economics, homeland security, and the politics of aviation require immediate changes. One possible solution to all of this is the disbursement of take-offs and landings to smaller airports, using smaller planes that are more fuel efficient, quieter, and represent a less tempting target of terrorists. The super mini-jet is the possible market place answer. When they arrive on the market they will likely make present day commuters outdated.
New Technologies are Emerging:
As this paper is being written there are several major airplane manufacturers (some in America and some abroad) that are in a race to be the first to offer a single-pilot, small, and affordable private jet airplane to the market for under $1 million. It is a direct spin off of R&D that went into the development and design of jet engines used to power Cruse Missiles and pilotless drone war-planes. I propose that the United States of America should be the first to offer this new technology to the market, that we grab this new market, then hang onto it like a coyboy riding a wild bull, and win the prize...which is the creation of new jobs and new careers.
These new mini-jets will be light weighted, very dependable, fast, quiet, fuel efficient, and economical. They will likely carry the pilot, some luggage, and 3-5 passengers each. Thus they will bring an end to the use of reciprocating engines that power multi-passenger airplanes.
So just what is a reciprocating engine?
In laymen’s terms it draws in air and fuel and produces energy that reciprocates somewhere else, like to a propeller. It is heavy because of how the energy must be managed. It is technology of the 1940s. Many of today’s small private aircraft still use 1940’s era tractor magneto technology! Jet engines, on the other hand, are lighter than reciprocating engines. They take in air and fuel and put out thrust.
If my projection is correct then tomorrow’s aviation will see the continued decline of large commercial jets and overcrowded airport terminals. We may, instead, see much greater use of smaller municipal airports at cities all across America. These new small planes will become “limousines in the air” and very popular on the part of corporate fliers who now represent the backbone of commercial flight. Second-layer investors will come from small mom & pop companies that want to have fractured ownership of a small private jet for under a million dollars, followed by requests made to the FAA for permission to fly an occasional passenger for a small profit to help offset the price of these future planes. Then we will likely see a landslide of corporate investments that could, likely, turn commercial aviation into something akin to ground taxi cab dispatching. Companies like United and Delta might even offer to lease out the professional skills of their existing pilots or take requests for private flights.
If commercial aviation evolves to this new template then the lure of hijacking huge commercial jets by terrorists will dissipate. There will be many more jobs spread out all across the nation. It will be cause for new hotels and motels to be built near existing airports in smaller cities. Skyscrapers like the SEARS building in Chicago, and nuclear power plants, will stand a far better chance of survival if struck by a small plane than by a jumbo jet full of fuel. Equally important this new mode of flying will reduce the high risk of runway incursions because ground traffic at large congested airports will be spread out across the nation.
This potential market could become very competitive, very fast, in a free enterprise environment.
If my prognosis is correct then such a change in aviation will represent the largest change of Federal Aviation Administration strategic planning in its history. That change may arrive suddenly and with little warning just like the world saw birth of CD and Wireless technology in a period of less than one decade.
Congestion on the ground at busy airports may transition to congestion in the air, overnight.
How Can We Americans Help Expedite the Mini-Jet?
We can gain a better understanding of how to individually help stimulate employment by learning what practically killed general aviation a few years back.
As pilots and flight engineers explained it to me: There was a non-expiring liability assigned to all manufacturers in the aviation industry. In layman’s terms an airplane that was manufactured in 1950 and sold for $5,000 carried with it a manufacture’s liability risk as the plane aged, changed owners, was modified, or worked on by mechanics. Then, when something went wrong years later (even 30 years after production) there were huge civil penalties for things as trivial as the pilot running out of fuel for lack of an “idiot alarm” or for some other warning device. Profit margin on the plane might have been only $1,000. With this logic regarding tort claims it is easy to understand why companies like Cessna turned off the assembly line switch of manufacture in the mid-1980s and left it off until a handful of congresspersons got tort reform. Life of original manufacturer liability was lowered to 17 years. But even that might be too long in today’s world of fast technological change.
Personally, I don’t understand why an original manufacturer of any product should be held responsible for their product for more than ten years, especially when in that same ten years the product may change ownership several times, there might be an array of mechanics working on it, and even serious post-manufacture modification. But we must insist for the continued assurance that all airplanes, pilots and mechanics remain highly trained and constantly airworthy.
What Should President George W. Bush do?
Just like he stood with the employees who manufactured tanks and armored personnel carriers during the war in Iraq the President should make immediate arrangements with Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta, and with Administrator of the FAA, Marian Blakley, then with industry leaders like the CEO of Cessna for an upcoming photo opportunity. Together, they should roll out what amounts to a prototype of tomorrow’s private mini-jet. Together, they should announce to the world that America intends to “take the lead for the production of private jets that will someday replace the large…smoke spewing, noisy, target-rich, present day commercial aircraft.” Emphasis should be placed on, “…new jobs, reduction of noise, ease of future travel, reduction of fossil fuel consumption, and a much more entrenched homeland defense!” From the floor of the plant he should request for a Congressional lowering of tort claim term-limit and, also, communicate how this can “help stimulate local economics to most small cities in the near future.” All of this is truth. All of it is positive. It’s a win-win situation for just about everyone except the terrorists who want to use commercial aviation against us.
Conclusion:
It is my personal and academic belief that aviation…the way it is being operated today…will continue to be either a tool and/or a target of asymmetric warfare modus operandi in American skies. Every large jet, filled with passengers and fuel, and every crowded air terminal, presents target rich environments for terrorists to exploit. So it is only a matter of time before one or more are exploited. By its pursuit of security the TSA forces passengers to expose themselves, in crowded lines, where they are vulnerable to suicide bombers. Simply put, commercial flying is no longer fun and exciting where some passengers are so disgusting they become an insult to decency. So if I am correct: Large jet commercial aviation, as we know it, is destined for sudden and abrupt changes, both as an industry and as a large segment market place variable.
Should the upcoming mini-jets emerge as I predict, and if that change is managed properly, meaning there is new tort reform to limit the risk presently held by manufacturers: General Aviation has the potential of becoming a most powerful market force replica of yesterday’s automobile and steel industry in Detroit! It may arrive as quickly as did the Honda craze of the 1960’s, or the Personal Computer era of the 1980’s, or the Wireless phenomena of the 1990’s, to fight against the asymmetric war in this Twenty-First Century. It may even outdate the need for that expensive Transportation Security Administration that is so appropriately nicknamed TSA, translated “Thousands Standing Around!”
Why can I predict this? It is because the infrastructure to support his new method of flying is already in place, the production lines are ramping up, and the market is prime. Or as a pilot friend of mine would say, “It’s time to kick the tires and light the fire!”
If you are truly interested in better homeland security and in new careers (without raising taxes) then: Fax this article to your United States Congressional and Senate representatives. Request immediate tort reform that will permit General Aviation to be reborn. Please do it today! Communicate that we want new jobs and new careers, not more taxation. This new technology is emerging so it is only right that the United States of America be the first to see market place benefits.
Future articles by Jim E. Reames will discuss other evolving industries in this post 9-11 world, for example our need to reinvent America’s criminal justice system, in order to save billions of dollars that are wasted away each year.
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